^ I know no nobler words, no loftier human standard, no more sublime ideal for the present juncture, than the masterpiece of literature with which Abraham Lincoln enriched the political library of the United States. The War of Secession was drawing to a close, and that great man, in whose character were combined the highest instincts of a true statesman and the tender-hearted generosity of a fervent Christian, had been for the second time elected to the presidential chair. In his Inaugural Address to Congress he spoke feelingly of both the Federal and the Confederate Forces. "Each looked," he said, "for an easier triumph. Both read the same Bible and pray to the same God ; and each invokes His aid against the other. . . . The prayers of both could not be answered." And his message closed with these words : " With malice toward none : with charity for all : with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive to finish the work we are in : to bind up the nation's wounds : to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow and his orphan : to do all that may achieve a just and lasting peace, among ourselves and with all nations." ^
^ A girl at school in France began to describe one of our regiments on parade to her French schoolmates, and as she went on, she told me, the recollection grew so vivid, she became so proud to be the countrywoman of such soldiers, and so sorry to be in another country, that her voice failed her and she burst into tears. I have never forgotten that girl, and I think she very nearly deserves a statue. To call her a young lady, with all its niminy associations, would be to offer her an insult. She may rest assured of one thing, although she never should marry a heroic general, never see any great or immediate result of her life, she will not have lived in vain for her native land.*
' Bishop A. F. W. Ingram, ' Sir Wilfrid Lawson, Life, 25.
' R. H. Hadden, * R. L. Stevenson, An Inland Voyage.
JUDGES V. 23 175
iii. Patriotism was Religion. 1. r)pbnra.h id gn tifi fts ■^t]bje-xaus.£_of_Jsrae]^ tfeyg cgjise of
Isi:aeIa«==Scd. To be disloyal to the nation implied, to her thinking, religious treason. This identification of patriotism and religion belongs to an early phase of religious development, and is unquestionably associated with the crudest notions of the Deity, and of His relation to His worshippers. In disregarding the primitive notions, however, mankind has not parted with the old habit which they created. Even among the civilized Christian communities of the modern world the tendency to identify the apparent interests of the nation with the cause of God prevails. In time of deep patriotic emotion this would seem to be inevitable. For the religious instincts are then alert and active; men have been lifted above themselves; they are deliberately facing extraordinary demands on their self-control and power of self-sacrifice. Eeligion gathers into itself, unifies, exalts, and hallows all these highest sentiments of human nature. Patriotism, just in proportion to its sincerity and its strength, merges into religion. The words of Deborah are found to utter the very thoughts of Christian men, as they gird themselves for a desperate effort, and see their fellows flinch from the task. It is said that the famous Presbyterian divine, Stephen Marshall, preached no less than sixty times from this text. It is a curious evidence of the temper of men's minds at that period when the great civil war was on the verge of breaking out.
Political servitude was not the only effect of the Canaanitish power; the continuance of that power meant the predominance of the gods of the Canaanites and the perpetuation of coarse and debasing forms of nature-worship. Deborah and Barak, what- ever their faults, stood for Jehovah, a spiritual Deity with a high morality. On Israel's freedom depended not merely her national existence and material prosperity, but the triumph of her purer faith.
2. Assuming the conception of human affairs as the scene of a true conflict between the will of God and oppugnant forces, how ought our conduct as patriotic citizens to be affected ? Can we, as presumably in that primitive age Deborah and her con-
176 THE SIN OF MEROZ
temporaries could do, simply accept the national interest, in the conventional and obvious sense of the phrase, as competent to interpret for us our religious duty? Is it enough to be con- sistently and enthusiastically an advocate for our own country at every point and on every occasion ? Has religion fulfilled its function when it stimulates and exalts patriotism ? We shall all agree that Christianity cannot be satisfied by these suggestions. The religion of Christ is not, in the old sense of the phrase, a national religion. Christ has commissioned no nation and no race to be, in any exceptional or exclusive sense, the historic guardian of His truth. " We must obey God rather than men " is a formula of essential Christianity ; and God still speaks to us, as in the old prophetic age, most authoritatively and intelligibly from within ourselves. " He hath shewed thee, 0 man, what is good ; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God ? "